When Jim Yong Kim ’82 flew back to his home state of Iowa in the middle
of his sophomore year, he was set on becoming a political science
major. “I think I could make a real difference in the world of
politics,” he told his father on the car ride from the airport. His
father, a South Korean immigrant and dentist, pulled the car over and
the two sat in silence for a moment. “You know, Jim,” his father said,
“after you finish your medical training, you can do anything you want.”

Frank Mullin

Don't just watch it unfold, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim "82 urges students in his keynote speech.

Kim’s
father won the first round. Kim attended Harvard Medical School, but,
in the years since he earned his medical degree, he’s combined
doctoring with politics and a commitment to social justice. It was his
mother, Kim said, who told him about the civil rights movement and
about Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous line, “The arc of the moral
universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” King, he said, “didn’t
mean we should be spectators and stand by and watch history move
forward. All of us must do our part to grab the arc of history and bend
it toward justice.”

Kim began his career in global public health as a medical resident
in 1987, when he cofounded Partners In Health, setting up health care
programs in Haiti. He left in 2003 to join the World Health
Organization, and a year later headed its HIV/AIDS department. Between
2009 and 2012, he served as president of Dartmouth.

He arrived at the World Bank at a critical moment, with its
historical domination by the United States under attack, the global
economy struggling, and many people questioning whether the aid agency
had outlived its use. After World Bank employees in a survey reported a
“culture of fear,” pervasive “fear of risk,” and a “terrible”
environment for cooperation, Kim ordered a major overhaul of the
bureaucracy. The agency lends more than $30 billion a year.

Unlike many past World Bank presidents, Kim’s background is in
health, not economics. In his speech he said the agency is now focused
on two core objectives—ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting
prosperity for the bottom 40 percent of the population in developing
countries. Other goals, he said, include slowing climate change and
getting countries to invest more in public health.

Given the World Bank’s emphasis on the environment, Kim inevitably
found himself being asked by students about the University’s decision
in October not to divest from companies involved in the coal industry.
He declined to give his opinion, but said that with many low-income
countries dependent on coal for energy, “there are just an extremely
large number of questions that are very complicated.” He echoed
comments made by President Christina Paxson in the past that Brown
could best serve the cause of environmentalism through scientific
research.

Kim’s speech, a Stephen A. Ogden Jr. ’60 Memorial Lecture on
International Affairs, at times sounded like a commencement address.
“Please go change the world,” he told students. “If you are here today
and if you graduate from Brown, you are ready to tackle just about
anything.”